At the Council meeting on October 21st, councilors Julie Halde and Maya Chammas voted against the new contractual management by-law which modifies the rules for which contracts can be awarded by mutual agreement.
This new regulation abolishes the requirements by which the administration must proceed by invitation to tender, and instead allows the administration to directly award contracts by mutual agreement up to a value of $133K (while it was limited to $50K previously). We consider this increase to be disproportionate.
As a principle of good governance, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs (MAMH) also recommends establishing guidelines for the awarding of contracts and encourages municipalities to opt for a variety of types of contracts (mutual agreement, call for tender by invitation and public call for tender). This increases the municipality’s ability to have competitive prices, to have access to innovative companies and to force rotation between service providers.
Based on the inflationary context of contract prices, we understand the need to increase the threshold ($50K) under which it is possible to award a contract by mutual agreement and we understand the need for the administration to be more agile in awarding certain contracts. However, we consider the requirement for call to tender by invitation for certain contracts is beneficial to the municipality and thus should be maintained. It would have been preferable to add an exception clause by approval of Council for special cases or when the municipality must act quickly. Unfortunately, our proposals were not accepted.
To learn more about the contractual management of cities:
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